Chapter 1183
The interactions with other Domination cultivators within Everheart’s domain were kept entirely civil. Even though Timothy thought he had little reason, Cynbel looked distinctly annoyed with him. Was it just because he’d fought on even footing with him for a few moments? Timothy absolutely didn’t believe that showing weakness would have been better.
Koronis wasn’t exactly friendly- they were still from rival factions- but she was effectively the same generation as Timothy and Catarina and thus hadn’t had too long to grow a big head about being a Domination cultivator. They shared a sort of mutual respect.
The main thing that kept conflicts away was Everheart, though. Disregarding his demonstration of power against far weaker foes, the addition of another Domination cultivator to any side of a conflict would be massive. Nobody could count on him supporting them against another, and they had to keep on guard for treachery from him. Just showing up was a slight risk, but learning more about his operations had been too tempting to ignore.
After the Imbued Fragments had their ships ‘thrown into a black hole’ which Catarina was certain was just a short range teleport into a local star, Everheart displayed the star he’d stolen. Not that people hadn’t been looking at it already.
It didn’t do anything. Catarina did take the opportunity to take a closer look at some of the formation markings. The materials in question were also interesting, since creating a structure that could absorb so much energy was an impressive result regardless of whether it was reasonable.
Everheart emphasized the natural energy the star emitted, and how he would use it to grow his own faction. Catarina thought that some people might actually be swayed to follow him- though it wasn’t likely to tempt members of the Alliance. If it did, it would be the weaker ones who had not yet reached Integration, so they wouldn’t have access to any truly secret information. It was still something they had to think about for Alliance security.
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Velvet was surprised they left without further incident. Then again, it would be somewhat wasteful to give her a message if Everheart intended to entrap the Alliance members. They still had to check for missing pieces, but most likely the best he could have gotten were scans of their ships. That was the sort of risk they had to take, and she thought it was acceptable. She didn’t mention anything about the message until they were on approach to Xankeshan, however.
Velvet pulled aside Catarina and TImothy. She had Catarina activate the best privacy wards they had available. “Before we finish our approach,” Velvet began, “I have some information to pass on.” She held up the tome passed to her. “One of Everheart’s projections approached the ship. He provided more information about Shelach. He said he might have pushed us towards the wrong approach.”